Fundraiser benefits Kingston Special Olympics curlers

The successful charity bonspiel meets at least one key criterion — it makes money for a beneficiary. The really good ones raise progressively higher amounts.

Like Alfie’s Open, for instance.

Don’t look for this annual eight-team affair among the city’s top charity bonspiels. Heck, the $13,000 raised at the recent United Way Funspiel more than triples the grand total drummed up during Alfie’s seven-year run.

Still, Alfie’s Open continues to meets the aforementioned criterion and has yet to experience a drop in the take that’s tallied and turned over to Special Olympics each year around this time.

“We keep it small and simple,” noted founder Al Davis, a retired Department of National Defence employee who took up curling at the turn of the century. “Same teams, same cost, same cold beer, same format — two six-end games. It’s pretty laid-back: some curling, some pops, some laughs with friends and, best of all, a chance to help a very worthy cause.”

To the beneficiary, the amount raised is irrelevant, though it can’t be argued that in these instances bigger IS better. Nevertheless the Special Olympics Shot Rocks curling team welcomes any support that comes its way, and a popular, well-run bonspiel, like regulars at a neighbourhood bar, is a dependable dollar stream.

The Alfie Open, hosted one day each February at Garrison Golf and Curling Club, raised a paltry eighty bucks at its inaugural. This year a record two grand was ponied up, and Sunday at the Garrison club, Davis turned over an oversized cheque to Shot Rocks team coach Bill McCormick.

The significance of the donation is not lost on McCormick, a 61-year-old retiree in his 18th year as coach. Ditto for the timing, which comes one day before McCormick, assistant coach Judy Secker and the five-member Shot Rocks team leaves for Newfoundland and this week’s Special Olympics National Winter Games in Corner Brook.

“Alfie’s Open has meant so much to our program through the years, and not just in terms of the equipment that we’ve managed to buy,” said McCormick.

“By far, the most important thing this year is that (the proceeds) have kept us on the ice,” he added. “Otherwise we’d be out there trying to fundraise, because that’s what we do a lot of the time. The money from Alfie’s Open allowed us more time on the ice practising instead of pounding the pavement.”

Special Olympics was a natural as beneficiary. For several years Davis has curled in a Sunday morning mixed pick-up league, just before the Shot Rocks take over the ice.

“Al’s come to know all the athletes and what’s more he talks and interacts with them, and they, in turn, love him,” said McCormick.

At the end of the first two events, organizer Davis, 59, drew heat and merciless ribbing from his own confederates. That’s the price one pays for winning one’s own bonspiel.

“Our goal is the same every year,” said Davis, “and that is to try and beat last year’s total. So far we’ve done that.”

The Alfie Open has raised approximately $4,000 for Special Olympics. Which, looking at it in another way, is four grand more than the Shot Rocks would have had there been no bonspiel at all.

“I’m going to keep running it until I’m dead,” vowed the organizer, “and hopefully somebody else will take it on after that. Because like I said, it’s for a good cause.”